


But for the Grace of Primus

by amarielah



Series: But For the Grace of Primus [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: (it's an OC), Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assault, Background Relationships, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Decepticon Ideology, Decepticon culture, Depression, Emotional Manipulation, Extremely Dubious Consent, Ideological Fanaticism, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Imprisonment, Isolation, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Drug Addiction, Past Drug Use, Power Imbalance, Prophetic Visions, Psychic Abilities, Psychological Trauma, Religious Discussion, Sexual Assault, Sexual Coercion, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-05-20 05:07:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19370227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amarielah/pseuds/amarielah
Summary: The common Autobot wisdom about running into a Decepticon that you'd known before the war was: don't.M.T.Os were one thing; they hadn't really picked a side. But it was different for those who'd been around since before the war. Nobody who’d willingly joined the Decepticons had been a happy or well-adjusted individual to start with, and the war had only made things worse.So when Ratchet caught sight of the mech who was leading his band of captors, nobody could blame him for panicking just a little.(Or: Shot down en-route to Kimia, Ratchet reunites with Drift a few millennia ahead of schedule. When Drift is still a devout and ruthless Decepticon.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Part I: Warnings**
> 
> I urge you to take the tags seriously. This is not a fluffy or light story by any stretch of the imagination. Deadlock is one of the worst Decepticons out there, and, at this point in the war, is fully immersed in all the most toxic aspects of Decepticon culture. This includes an unwavering belief in kratocracy (the idea that those who deserve political authority are those who are strong/cunning enough to seize it), and with it a belief in power dynamics that makes it nigh-impossible to maintain truly intimate and trusting relationships. So his understanding of intimacy is incredibly twisted, as is his understanding of consent. He's not pure evil. Obviously, since he goes down a different path eventually. He's not a raging sadist like most of the D.J.D, or a psychopath like Overlord. But he is still every bit as ruthless, cold, and cunning as one would have to be to rise so high in the Decepticon ranks.
> 
> Furthermore, this fic is from Ratchet's perspective, so there will be a lot of uncomfortable psychological ramifications explored here. Please know that I am not endorsing them as the 'correct' response.
> 
> **Part II: Deadlock**
> 
> Deadlock doesn't actually have much characterization, canonically speaking, besides ‘insubordinate, impulsive, and really likes to kill Autobots’. Which basically amounts to ‘generic evil Decepticon’. He shows up for a few pages in his full Decepticon glory, but we mostly hear about him from other characters. And since I really despise 'generic evil Decepticon' as a characterization for anyone, I'll be using Drift's characterization as a kind of jumping-off point. So some of his more unsavory traits (sanctimoniousness, fanaticism, manipulativeness, etc) will be dialed up here. My hope is that readers can see a through-line of characterization from Deadlock to Drift, without glossing over the fact that Deadlock is, in fact, a villain who does terrible things.

The common Autobot wisdom about running into a Decepticon that you'd known before the war was: don't.

M.T.Os were one thing; they hadn't really  _picked_ a side. But it was different for those who'd been around since before the war. Nobody who'd willingly joined the Decepticons had been a happy or well-adjusted individual to start with, and the war had only made things worse.

So when Ratchet caught sight of the mech who was leading his band of captors, nobody could blame him for panicking just a little. Because he saw the flare of recognition in the Decepticon's optics, the way his mouth twisted ever-so-slightly downward. It took Ratchet a few moments to get himself under control and match the face with the records in his own memory banks.

4th cycle 501. A Dead-Ender, brought in by Orion Pax, suffering from an acute overdose of circuit speeders in addition to blunt-force trauma. Went by the name of Drift. He'd been in real bad shape, but was so hyped up that he'd remained semi-conscious on the operating table, hallucinating. Mumbling nonsense. When he'd been sober enough to understand plain speech again, Ratchet had given him a pep-talk, and the kid had sold him some scrap about getting clean. The way speeder addicts always did.

Then Pax had gotten a call from his Senator friend. Asked Ratchet to come along. And just as Ratchet was leaving the clinic, Drift had grabbed his arm, leaned in close and said: "I could stop by here another time. Show you just how much I appreciate what you did for me today."

It hadn't been the first time that a Dead-Ender had propositioned Ratchet after treatment. The slum had run on what Optimus called a 'vice economy'; goods and services bartered for with intimate favors. Leaking and stimming, most often. Ratchet understood the offers for what they were: a salve for the Dead-Enders' pride. A way of saying:  _yeah, I'm a leaker and an addict, but that doesn't make me a parasite._

Even beyond the ethical concerns, Ratchet had found the prospect of simulated intimacy as part of a 'transaction' to be deeply troubling. So he'd said to Drift what he'd said to all the others. "You can show your appreciation by taking care of yourself, kid."

And Drift  _had_ taken care of himself, after a fashion. Had found something to live for, like so many others, in the Decepticon cause. Which meant that Ratchet was probably not going to survive his imprisonment. Decepticons despised weakness more than pretty much anything else, and Ratchet had seen this mech when he'd been at his absolute  _weakest_. He'd find nothing but resentment here.

So he swallowed down the sarcastic remark that was itching to come out, not letting on that the recognition was mutual. If not for his own sake, then for Swerve's and Ignitions'. The Decepticon would have less to prove to his underlings if Ratchet didn't rub their previous encounter in his face.

"I told you to kill, not capture," said Drift, coldly. Though, knowing Decepticons, the kid had probably been given a different name. Something ridiculous like  _Speedkiller_ or  _Fastdeath_. 'Drift' just wasn't suitably menacing.

"And we normally would've, boss," said the head flunky. A dour fellow with a red visor and some kind of four-wheeled alt-mode. He jerked his gun at Ratchet. "But I recognized this one. Some big-shot doctor. I figured he could be useful."

Drift approached them, making a show of giving Ratchet a once-over. "We don't have any use for the other two," he said. He then unholstered one of his own guns and walked over to Ignition, pointing it directly at the minibot's head.

Ratchet opened his mouth to try and say something - anything - that might convince Drift to spare the mech's life. But before he could get his vocalizer to work, Drift pulled the trigger. Energon and cranial fluid spattered on the ground, soaking into the grey dirt. Ignition's frame toppled backward with a sickening thud.

Ratchet barely managed not to heave. He'd seen a lot of carnage over the course of the war, of course. A lot of injuries, including head wounds. But this was so sudden, so  _visceral_ , that it challenged even Ratchet's considerable tolerance for gore.

Drift had moved on to Swerve, who was chanting "Primus save my spark" like a mantra.

Desperately, Ratchet managed to say, "If you kill him, you may as well kill me too."

"You're not exactly in a bargaining position," said the dour flunky, sounding bored.

That was true. But Drift was paying attention, and he hadn't shot Swerve yet. So Ratchet decided to press his luck. "If you kill him, you'll get rid of any incentive I have to cooperate. You can torture me all you like, and I still won't do a damn thing to help you." He was banking on the fact that the flunkies had defied orders to keep him alive in the first place. Whatever they needed him for, it was important enough to risk the wrath of their superior.

Drift narrowed his optics, deliberating for several nanokliks, then lowered his gun.

Swerve sagged in relief.

"Take them to the brig."

* * *

Ratchet didn't actually stay in the brig for very long. Within a few cycles, the same contingent of flunkies had come to transfer him to an actual habsuite. It was bare-bones, and locked from the outside, but an undeniable improvement over the dank cell he'd been kept in before. It had a pair of recharge slabs, a set of chairs, and a small table. Set up for cohabitation, just like standard Autobot suites. Though Ratchet doubted very much that he'd be getting a roommate.

It was all putting him on edge, to be honest. He'd heard the horror stories that came out of the 'peace camps'. Select inmates were sometimes given special privileges in exchange for acting as supervisors to their enslaved comrades, or for doing specialized work that sped up the process of exterminating those that had been deemed more useful as raw materials for M.T.Os. This clearly wasn't that kind of facility, but Ratchet imagined that the principle still held true.

He was allowed to stew on this for several cycles, at which point Drift finally came to visit him. Though, as expected, he introduced himself by a different name. Deadlock. Ratchet may have felt smug about being right, under better circumstances.

It was Ratchet's experience that command-level Decepticon tended to fall into two categories: 'scowly' and 'smirky'. The former tended to be cold and taciturn, while the latter tended to be glib, loving to hear the sounds of their own voices. In front of his mechs, 'Deadlock' had been firmly in the 'scowly' camp. But now that he and Ratchet were alone together, he edged more towards 'smirky'.

It was clear to Ratchet that both were carefully-crafted personas. He wondered how much of the kid he'd met all those eons ago was still in there, beneath the masks.

"You're a medic," Deadlock said, after the standard introductory spiel. "They rely on you to save them, but they don't tell you important military intelligence. So I'm going to go ahead and skip the interrogation." He cocked his head to the side, stroking his chin theatrically. "The other one probably doesn't know anything useful, either, but my mechs might resent the fact that we're letting a dead-weight Autobot deplete our energon supplies."

Ratchet knew that this was mostly a lie. Swerve was small, and was probably going to be kept on the edge of starvation. He wouldn't cut into their rations to any notable degree. But Ratchet understood what Deadlock really meant. "So I'd better give you a damn good reason not to let them express their frustration," Ratchet said. "What do you want me to do?"

Deadlock's hand dropped, as did all semblance of affability. "Anything I say, at any time, for any reason."

"You have anything more specific than that?"

"You'll just have to use your imagination," Deadlock drawled.

Ratchet didn't really need to exercise his brain module too hard to figure it out, though. He was a medic, as Deadlock had said. One of the best there was, in point of fact. And they were in a Decepticon base - not a prison camp. "You don't need to threaten me, you know. I took an oath." Ratchet could and would take up arms in self-defense. Even in offense, when the situation called for it. But he would not, under any circumstances, purposefully harm a patient in his care.

Deadlock scoffed. "They will deceive you, and call it honor."

It took Ratchet a few nanokilks to place the quote. It was from 'Towards Peace'. "'They will oppress you, and call it justice'," he quoted back. Megatron could certainly write a punchy turn-of-phrase. "A true believer, huh."

"Does that frighten you, Autobot?"

"I'd be an idiot if it didn't," he admitted. A Decepticon who actually believed in the movement's core ideology was generally more dangerous than the kind that had joined up to avoid being killed for neutrality, or M.T.Os who'd never had a choice in the matter to start with. You couldn't reason with or bribe a fanatic.

Deadlock smirked approvingly. "And you're definitely not an idiot," he said. He stood up and proceeded to leave. But, just as he was about to close the door, he said: "I'll be seeing you again very soon."

Ratchet didn't doubt it for a moment.

* * *

He was awoken from recharge fourteen cycles later by the dour-faced flunky and another grunt - a flyer with the slightly-dulled optics of one who'd indulged in a processor-altering substance. The flyer chatted for the whole duration of the journey to the medbay, but Ratchet tuned him out. It was a skill he'd mastered while being on a ship with Swerve for several consecutive deca-cycles. There was a bot already prepping a circuit slab when they arrived. Slightly shorter than Ratchet, and painted in Decepticon colors. He straightened when he saw them.

"We're getting a shipment of wounded in a few cycles," he said. He held out his hand for Ratchet to shake, much to Ratchet's surprise. "I'm Ambulon."

"Ratchet," said Ratchet, as he took the proffered appendage in his own. "Ambulon, as in 'ambulance'?" He couldn't see much in the way of vehicle kibble on the mech, so he was curious.

The flyer chimed in from his position at the medbay's door: "As in 'to ambulate'. His alt-mode's a leg!"

Probably an M.T.O, then. Embarrassment and irritation flashed across Ambulon's face. "All the best names were already taken," he said, defensively. He gave the flyer a dirty look. "I'm sure that Crankcase and I can keep a single unarmed Autobot from escaping, Flyhigh. Why don't you go make yourself useful somewhere else?"

"No can do," said Flyhigh, cheerfully. "I'm under orders."

"More like under the  _influence_ ," muttered Ambulon, so only Ratchet could hear.

Ratchet couldn't help but smile, just a little. "How'd a gestalt wind up working as a medic?"

"A  _junior_ medic," said Crankcase. "If he were a  _proper_ medic, we wouldn't need  _you_."

Ambulon released Ratchet's hand, his mouth twisting with displeasure. "I'm not actually part of a gestalt, yet. They haven't made it that far."

"I see," said Ratchet, recognizing that this was the likely source of Ambulon's somewhat tetchy demeanor. The poor mech had probably been thawed out and constructed for the sole purpose of becoming a gestalt, but combiner technology was a tricky thing. All he had to look forward to in the future were horrifying experiments conducted by some amoral, sadistic scientist. Not a pleasant prospect for anyone with a lick of sense.

Ambulon shrugged, his expression shuttering. "I have to make myself useful in the meantime. I'll be following your lead, sir."

"'Sir'?" asked Ratchet. "Last I checked, I'm a prisoner."

Deadlock's voice entered the fray. "You've been appointed Interim Chief Medical Officer, pending a transfer by someone equally qualified." Ratchet looked to the source of the voice; Deadlock was standing in the doorway. "You're still a prisoner, of course, but you'll have limited freedom in the medbay. So long as you behave yourself."

"You're being serious," said Ratchet, giving his captor an incredulous look. He'd expected to be put to work, of course. But that didn't mean being given anything resembling on official position. "Are all Decepticon medbays this badly understaffed?"

Deadlock entered the medbay fully, saying, "We're not exactly on the front lines, out here." Ratchet could detect the barest hint of tension underlying those words. He wondered if Deadlock had been transferred to this relatively quiet outpost as some kind of disciplinary measure. Given the Decepticon's reputation, it seemed like a dreadful waste of his 'talents'.

"No, I suppose not," said Ratchet. Crankcase and Flyhigh were hardly the Decepticons' best and brightest, to be sure.

"We still get shipments of wounded once or twice a deca-cycle, though. Ambulon hasn't been able to keep up with the demand."

Ambulon ducked his head in shame. "The patients we get are usually the ones with injuries or diseases too severe to be treated in the field. It means we provide a lot of medium and long-term care. And...I was just a trainee when I got transferred."

Ratchet had noticed that the convalescence chamber was larger than normal. This base was clearly being used as a medivac hub for this region of the galaxy. It was no wonder that they'd kept him alive, in light of that.

Ratchet had already noticed that the base as a whole was unusually empty. Ratchet hadn't actually seen that much of it, admittedly, but there was an almost eerie silence about the place. No sounds of rowdiness from a mess, or metalworking from a machine shop. It lacked even the low-level hum of ambient comm chatter that was a staple of any reasonably-sized outpost.

"I understand," said Ratchet. "Why don't you show me some of your existing patients while we wait for the medivac to arrive?"

* * *

Several cycles later, and Ratchet felt like he'd started to find his bearings. At least as much as was possible in a situation like this. So long as he didn't think too hard about how he was fixing up Decepticons to go out and murder more Autobots, falling into the routine of his work was actually rather pleasant. He was in a surprisingly good mood by the time Flyhigh and Crankcase escorted him back to his habsuite.

It was ruined, though, when Deadlock came by a cycle later, carrying a cube half-full of energon. It would be just enough to keep Ratchet functioning at a reasonable level, but not enough to actually satiate him.

It wasn't the energon delivery that put him on edge, though, so much as the ulterior motive attached to Deadlock being the one to deliver it. Ratchet stood and walked to his captor, who handed him the cube.

"Thanks," said Ratchet, gulping it down without fanfare. He didn't know what to do with the empty vessel, so he just held onto it.

"Word is that you and Ambulon hit it off," said Deadlock.

"He's a good kid," Ratchet replied. And it was true. It wasn't like Ambulon had  _asked_ to have his spark thawed out by Decepticons. "Don't tell me you're going to report him to the D.J.D for 'fraternization'."

Deadlock raised an optic ridge. "You're legendary, so some professional hero worship is only to be expected. Honestly, I'd question his commitment to his vocation if he  _didn't_ put you on a pedestal."

Ratchet exvented, more relieved than he had any right to be.

"But,  _if_ you were to exploit your provisional freedom in the medbay during, say, an attempt to escape..." Deadlock shrugged. "Well, it would only be logical to conclude that the poor kid let his admiration get the better of him. And then I'd just kill him myself."

Ratchet bristled at the threat. "Maybe you wouldn't be so damn understaffed if you didn't kill off your medics at the drop of a hat."

"He's a  _junior_ medic," said Deadlock. "And not a very good one, at that. Easy enough to replace." He gave Ratchet a crooked smile. "And let's not forget about your friend in the brig. He never shuts up, apparently, and the guard has suggested that we pull out his vocalizer. Should I give him the go-ahead?"

Ratchet's hands curled into fists, but he forced himself to say, "We understand each other, Deadlock."

The Decepticon clapped him on the shoulder with just a touch more force than necessary. "Good mech," he said. He then took the cube from Ratchet's hand, their fingers brushing against each other. The sensation of it was even more jarring than the mild blow, and Ratchet stiffened.

If Deadlock noticed, he gave no sign of it. Which made Ratchet think that the action had been entirely deliberate.

"Get some rest," said Deadlock. "You're going to need it."

* * *

They got a steady stream of patients over the next few solar cycles. A few of them were beyond saving - like the poor mech with an advanced systemic cosmic rust infection. But Ratchet managed to get most of the newcomers on the way to recovery. Ambulon was already visibly improving under some proper guidance.

The round-the-clock guards were notably absent, probably because Deadlock just didn't have the mechs to spare. That would certainly explain why Deadlock had made a point of threatening Ambulon. Just in case the threat to Swerve wasn't enough of a restraint on Ratchet's rebellious impulses.

By the fourth solar cycle, the workload had noticeably lightened. And, for a worrying change of pace, Ratchet was escorted to Deadlock's office after his shift.

It was busier than Ratchet's habsuite, but still strictly utilitarian. A desk, a few chairs, a pair of sofas, and a shelf with a smattering of datapads.

Deadlock was leaning against the desk, a decanter and a glass beside him.

"To what do I owe the honor?" Ratchet asked.

"You've done well," said Deadlock, pouring out some of the liquid into the glass and holding it out for Ratchet to take. It looked to be engex. "So I'm rewarding you."

Ratchet took the glass gingerly. "I wasn't expecting the 'energon' side of the energon-whip equation to actually come into play." Ratchet suspected that the relatively gilded cage of his habsuite was more a measure to keep him functional enough to be useful, rather than as a reward in itself.

Deadlock smiled sardonically. "I could string you up and torture you, if you prefer." He gestured to the sofa in the center of the office. "Have a seat."

Ratchet did so, then took a small, experimental sip of the beverage. It was indeed engex, and of a surprisingly high grade. A real extravagance, given the remoteness of the outpost. "I doubt your mechs would be happy to know you gave me this," he said, before realizing belatedly that it sounded an awful lot like a threat. Hurriedly, he added, "I mean, I appreciate the gesture, but I can't say that I understand what your angle is."

"If my mechs don't like it, they're welcome to try and do something about it," said Deadlock, dismissively. The way Decepticons actively encouraged subterfuge and mutiny was always going to strike Ratchet as profoundly strange, no matter how much he understood their ideology on an intellectual level. "As for my 'angle': are you still pretending that you don't recognize me?"

"I haven't been  _pretending_ ," said Ratchet. "It just didn't seem prudent to bring it up. Given the circumstances."

"Do you think I keep my history a  _secret_?" Deadlock asked, gazing at him with a kind of scrutiny that made Ratchet feel more than a little uncomfortable. The effect was only amplified by the fact that Deadlock was still standing.

Ratchet looked down at his drink, watching the tiny ripples on its luminescent surface. If not for the legendary steadiness of his hands, they'd be much larger. "I know Decepticons see weakness as the ultimate vice," he said.

"No," said Deadlock. "We see  _complacency_ as the ultimate vice. I  _rose up_ , Autobot. Above my weakness. Above my  _slavery_. I'm a walking testament to the truth of Decepticon doctrine. So I have no reason to hide what I used to be."

Ratchet took another, larger sip of his engex, hoping to take the edge off. A true believer, indeed. "If you wanted to try converting me, you probably should've held off on shooting a friend of mine point-blank in the head." He winced internally at the way the words just slipped out.

"I'm correcting a misunderstanding," said Deadlock, conversationally. "You made your choice. As far as I'm concerned, you lost your chance to be on the right side of history the moment you served under Zeta Prime. The Autobot badge just sealed the deal."

Ratchet's tank felt very heavy, all of a sudden. He remembered his own doubts, from all those eons ago. The betrayal of a faith misplaced. But it was also unnerving that Deadlock would even know about it, considering it hadn't exactly been  _advertised_. Not a secret, certainly, but not the stuff of broadcast gossip. "So when an 'equally qualified replacement' comes along," Ratchet said, "my termination will be  _literal_."

"That's right," said Deadlock. "Unlike  _some_ people, I don't deal in false hope."

There was a weight to those latter words that gave Ratchet pause. After a moment, he asked, "Is that what you think I did, before the war?"

"'Get a paint 'n polish. Visit the Functionists. You're  _special_ , I can tell.'" Those familiar words sounded truly absurd, parroted back to him in Deadlock's mocking tone. "How many times did you give that speech, Autobot? Be honest."

An old guilt sprung to life inside of him, emerging like a lingering infection from where Ratchet had haphazardly buried it in his processor. It took a long moment for him to regain his bearings. "The first two parts, I'll grant you. I had a lot of very hopeless bots coming through that clinic, and my slabside manner has never been my strongest suit. So I came up with a script." He vented out a sigh. "But the part about you being special? That was completely sincere. The speeder addicts I treated always promised me that they'd get clean.  _Always_. And then, nine times out of ten, Pax would contact me a few deca-cycles later and tell me that they'd been found in a gutter somewhere, dead from an overdose. But...I had a gut feeling about you. That you'd be one of the lucky ones. That you had a  _future_."

"You still stand by that?" Ratchet looked up at Deadlock to find that his optics were bright with focused intent.

"I mean, you've certainly made a name for yourself," said Ratchet. And that was very funny to him, all of a sudden. "Primus be praised - I'm a goddamn prophet!" He chuckled bitterly and took a bigger swig of the engex. "The universe sure can be a wacky place, Drift. If I were a different kind of bot, it might even make me believe in that kind of nonsense."

When he looked back to Deadlock, the Decepticon's expression had visibly soured. It took Ratchet an embarrassingly long time to think of a reason why.

"Sorry. Meant 'Deadlock'. The engex must already be affecting my brain module." And it was the truth. He hadn't indulged in any over-fueling for years - not with all the fuel rationing - and his tolerance was shot to hell. He wasn't exactly drunk, yet, but he would be in another few sips. He put the glass of engex down on the table. It was important to keep his wits about him. "It's all yours if you want to finish it."

"It wouldn't do anything for me," said Deadlock. His expression had evened out. "I activated my F.I.M chip permanently a very long time ago."

A good step for any recovering addict, Ratchet knew. He was about to say so, when he felt the sofa shift beside him, and the heat of another frame very close to his own.

"You should finish it," said Deadlock, sliding an arm around Ratchet's shoulders.

It was said mildly enough, but Ratchet knew that it wasn't a request. He activated his F.I.M chip, then downed the rest of the drink. If nothing else, it would help to hold him off until his next fueling.

When Deadlock spoke again, his voice was very cold. "I didn't say you could turn on  _your_ F.I.M chip."

Ratchet stiffened under Deadlock's arm.

"Then again," said Deadlock. "I never said you  _couldn't_. So I guess that's on me."

And then Ratchet was suddenly pressed down onto the sofa. Deadlock was surprisingly strong for a speedster. Strong enough that he could restrain Ratchet's fairly bulky frame without much effort at all.

"What do you want?" Ratchet asked, after trying and failing to push Deadlock away.

"I have a debt to repay," said Deadlock. "I wouldn't want you to think me  _ungrateful_ , now would I?"

Ratchet grimaced, trying to shift his weight so that Deadlock wouldn't be pressed against him quite so...intimately. It didn't work.

"Do you remember how you turned your nose up at me, Ratchet?" Deadlock hissed into his audio receptor. "Fed me some platitude, as if I couldn't see that the thought of being touched by  _Dead-Ender trash_  didn't make your tank turn."

"It wasn't like that, kid," Ratchet insisted. And it was the truth. It hadn't even occurred to him to think of it in those terms.

Deadlock chuckled darkly, pressing him even more firmly down. "Let me guess: it was about your  _ethical code_."

"You going to quote 'Towards Peace' at me, again?" He vaguely remembered several passages that dealt with the matter of ethics. How they weren't about compassion, but condescension. A means of obscuring injustice by accruing unpaid debts.

"Seems like you're already familiar with the relevant passages," said Deadlock. He reached down and stroked a finger over Ratchet's modesty panel. "Now be a good Autobot and move this aside, so I can show you how us  _lowly skivs_  paid our dues."

"Drift,  _please_." Ratchet stopped struggling completely. It was clear that all he had left were words. Even if he could've matched Deadlock in strength, fighting could spell doom for Swerve. "Not like this."

There was a long pause, and Ratchet could feel his exhaust vents working overtime, his energon rushing in his audio receptors.

"Anything I say, at any time, for any reason," murmured Deadlock. "Those terms haven't changed, Autobot."

Ratchet's cooling fans kicked into high gear, his tank roiling. Then, with a feeling of grim resignation, he transformed his panel away.

"There we go," Deadlock said, in a tone that was just shy of a croon. "Show me your valve." Ratchet obliged him, sliding his valve cover aside. Deadlock gave a pleased hum, tracing a finger around the outer mesh; a mockery of tenderness. "Just  _relax,_ " he said. "I'm not gonna hurt you."  _Unless you don't cooperate_ was left unsaid, but was no less obvious for it. Deadlock's finger trailed up to Ratchet's anterior node, stimulating it with just a hint of pressure. A jolt run up Ratchet's spinal strut.

"Hold off on activating manual lubrication," said Deadlock, petting the node more firmly.

Ratchet stiffened, a wave of apprehension overtaking the hesitant buildup of pleasure.

Deadlock sighed. "Even if we  _were_ going to interface, I'm not some kind of masochist. I just want to see if I can slick you up myself. Think of it as a matter of professional pride." Deadlock couldn't see Ratchet's face, but he somehow managed to pick up Ratchet's shock. He chuckled. "A syk addict with nothing going for him but a pretty frame and a sleek alt-mode. You really didn't  _guess_?"

"I...suspected," Ratchet admitted. Most bots who'd been desperate enough to consider volunteering at a relinquishment clinic would have likely considered a less extreme form of selling their frames. Being a buymech had been considered more shameful, and it hadn't paid nearly as well, but it had also been objectively less dangerous.

"Well, suspicions confirmed." Deadlock began to stroke Ratchet's node again. "Open your legs nice and wide for me, yeah?"

Ratchet grit his teeth and forced himself to comply.

Deadlock shifted down Ratchet's body, which meant he was no longer pinning Ratchet with his full weight. Ratchet didn't even bother trying to escape, though. Deadlock's fingers explored Ratchet's frame on the way down, clearly looking for sensitive spots. They traced over Ratchet's windshield, then to the seam underneath it, and Ratchet shuddered. It felt... _almost_ good. Deadlock moved even further down, running his fingers along the edges of the depressions in Ratchet's abdominal plating. Ratchet shuddered again, his valve clenching of its own volition. He hadn't been touched like this in so long that his arousal protocols apparently didn't care that it was happening under duress.

Deadlock reached his destination at last. Ratchet could feel hot exhaust against his thighs, against his  _node_. "See?" Deadlock ran a finger around the edge of Ratchet's valve once more, a bit more firmly. "You're already starting to loosen up." He leaned and dragged his tongue over Ratchet's node in a long, slow stroke. Ratchet let out a choked-off sound. "Sensitive," said Deadlock, in a low, approving tone. "Been a while, huh?"

A few more sweeps of Deadlock's tongue, and Ratchet's valve was throbbing. Ratchet stared up at the ceiling and tried not to think about anything at all. But Deadlock wasn't content to stay silent and let Ratchet's awareness wander. "You're a very busy mech, aren't you," he said, despite his mouth still being right next to Ratchet's node. "Too busy for petty things like overloads, I bet." He closed the few centimeters between his mouth and Ratchet's node, kissing it. "When was the last time somebody touched you like this?"

Ratchet forced himself to answer. "A few hundred thousand years ago." It had been Wheeljack, back when they'd still been figuring out if they were suited to something more than friendship. It had turned out that they weren't.

Deadlock hummed, kissing his node again. "I guess the rumors about Autobots aren't true," he said. "Or maybe you're just the exception."

"Doesn't this count as fraternization?" Ratchet grit out, frustration making him incautious.

"Is that a  _threat_? Because I can guarantee that you wouldn't like the consequences of bringing the D.J.D down on my head any more than I would." Deadlock gave his node another long, thorough lick. "They're not nearly as pragmatic as I am. You'd be  _lucky_ if they decided to ship you off to a prison camp." He returned to tracing the rim of Ratchet's valve with the tip of his finger, just barely teasing the outermost sensors. "With me, you'll get fulfilling work, comfortable living conditions, no inhibitor spike, decent rations..." He slipped the finger inside. "And a quick, painless death, when it comes to that. You should be giving thanks to Primus that I'm the one who found you."

"Point taken," said Ratchet, with an embarrassing burst of static. He was tempted to say that death threats didn't generally put him in the mood, but it was abundantly clear that his frame was responding just fine.

Deadlock wanted him to overload. Ratchet could probably manage that, if he could find a way to relax. Just focus on the sensation of that finger inside him, stimulating long-neglected internal nodes, and not on the circumstances that led to it being there. Try harder to think about somebody who hadn't murdered a long-time comrade right in front of his optics.

But none of that turned out to be necessary. Deadlock slipped another finger inside, swirled his tongue over Ratchet's node, and that was it. Ratchet hurtled into overload so fast that he didn't even remember to shut off his vocalizer in time.

"It's a good thing this office is soundproofed," Deadlock said, with faint amusement, once Ratchet had come down. The Decepticon's fingers were still inside him, and the stretch of his suddenly oversensitive inner mesh was just shy of uncomfortable. Worse still was the queasy sense of hopelessness. Ratchet always got embarrassingly emotional after overloading. It would've been bad enough if he'd been with somebody he cared for, and who cared for him in return. But it was patently obvious that Deadlock's feelings for him were anything but warm.

He wanted, very suddenly, to be held. To have somebody stroke gentle fingers over his plating and tell him that everything was going to be alright.

Deadlock pulled his fingers free and sat back on the sofa. "You can close your panel," he said.

Ratchet did so, pushing himself up into a sitting position with shaking arms. He couldn't bring himself to look Deadlock in the optics.

"We're done here," said Deadlock.

Ratchet left Deadlock's office, and was escorted back to his suite.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...this fic has expanded into 3 chapters instead of 2. Whoops.
> 
> Also, the previous warnings still apply. Only now I had to add a Dead Dove: Do Not Eat tag.

As a medic, Ratchet was very familiar with the physiological effects of sexual activity. Interfacing was the most potent, of course. But even stimming released all kinds of neurotransmitters that primed mechs for social bonding.

That was why most mechs only ever did it with close friends or their conjunx endurae. Ratchet hadn't participated in much sexual activity over the course of his life, but he still knew that he wasn't supposed to come out of the experience feeling like _this_. Helpless. Violated. Horrifyingly, desperately _lonely_.

This had, Ratchet suspected, been the point.

To a Decepticon like Deadlock, Ratchet was the embodiment of everything he was fighting against: an Autobot who'd belonged to the upper castes of Old Cybertron, and worked directly under more than one Prime. Moreover, Deadlock clearly resented the fact that Ratchet had given him charity that he'd never asked for.

This was about Deadlock taking back the power that he believed Ratchet had stolen from him.

It probably wouldn't have been so bad, if Ratchet just had some work to do. But his own competence had damned him to boredom and solitude in his habsuite.

He tried his best to fall into recharge.

* * *

A pattern emerged.

Ratchet would be sent to the medbay when there was work to be done. Eventually, once the workload lightened, he'd be escorted to Deadlock's office for his 'reward'. He'd be given something to drink: engex, or a full cube of energon. In the event that is was engex, Deadlock expected him to keep his F.I.M chip deactivated. He never explained why.

Then would come the conversation. They'd just...talk. As if they weren't on opposite sides of a war. As if Deadlock wasn't holding a friend of his hostage to ensure Ratchet's cooperation.

As if Deadlock hadn't assaulted him.

And then Deadlock would send Ratchet back to his habsuite, where he'd remain - bored and isolated - until more work arrived. Even his rations were simply pushed through the door by some lackey whose name he didn't know.

Deadlock didn't touch him again.

* * *

A few deca-cycles into Ratchet's captivity, Ambulon got sent away. Which was baffling, frankly. If the objective was to eventually get rid of Ratchet, then having him train his own replacement was the most logical solution.

He asked Deadlock about it.

"Ambulon is fulfilling his original purpose," Deadlock had said. If it bothered him that one of his comrades was going to be subjected to experiments that would likely prove painful and humiliating, it hadn't shown on his face. "I'm sure you're more than capable of picking up the slack."

And he was. Of course he was. But Ambulon had been Ratchet's colleague. A bastion of professionalism and sanity.

Ambulon had been...his friend.

And now he was gone.

* * *

He wondered, sometimes, what Pharma would make of all of this. Tell him to buck up and stop whining, probably.

Pharma was arrogant and vain and cynical, and had quite the chip on his shoulder, but damn if he couldn't carry a conversation. They'd been due to meet up at Kimia; Ratchet had been looking forward to it. The last time they'd been stationed together, they'd often eschewed recharge in favor of debating over some minor point of contention. They hadn't even really disagreed, half the time. It had been about the sport.

He wondered, sometimes, if he'd ever see Pharma again.

* * *

The most disconcerting thing about his conversations with Deadlock was how _normal_ they usually were. How little Ratchet had to censor himself. He supposed that had to do with whatever Deadlock actually got out of their time together - which Ratchet couldn't even begin to guess at. Ratchet might have thought it was about relieving boredom, if the timing wasn't always so deliberate.

Deadlock was surprisingly forthright. Not just about his history in the Dead End, but everything. When Ratchet had asked him why he'd been stationed out in the middle of nowhere, for example, he'd explained without any apparent discomfort that Megatron was teaching him 'patience' after his 'eagerness' had resulted in failure. Ratchet supposed it was a testament to Deadlock's importance that Megatron hadn't simply blasted him with a fusion cannon.

Now that Ambulon was gone, Ratchet had to work every day. Not least because the volume of new patients was increasing. Which probably meant that the 'front lines' were getting closer.

The intensifying workload meant less time alone in his suite - something that Ratchet appreciated. By the same token, however, Ratchet had never before been single-handedly responsible for the welfare of _so many_ mechs. Without anyone to help him, work itself was becoming a burden. Especially when he knew that doing a bad job was liable to get both him and Swerve killed.

There were no guards, and none of the patients were in any fit state to socialize. Even when he was surrounded by mechs, Ratchet was completely alone.

So, much to Ratchet's growing horror, he found that his meetings with Deadlock were the only thing he really had left to look forward to.

* * *

The next time Ratchet met with Deadlock, he was well and truly exhausted. But he'd be damned if he gave his captor the satisfaction of seeing it.

Ratchet thought he was doing a pretty good job of hiding it, too, until Deadlock said: "Maybe you can't pick up the slack, after all."

Ratchet glared at him. "How do you _do_ that?"

"Do what?" Deadlock asked, in what had to be feigned obliviousness. He set a cube of energon in front of Ratchet, then sat down on the opposite sofa.

"That - that _thing_. Where it's like you're reading my mind."

"Ah," said Deadlock, sitting down on the opposite sofa and putting the cube in front of Ratchet. "Well, I can see auras."

"...You mean you have E.M synesthesia." It wasn't unheard of. Some bots were more sensitive to electromagnetism than others, and that sensitivity occasionally manifested in 'seeing' E.M fields. It would make sense, in fact, given Deadlock's history of abusing circuit speeders. Certain kinds of brain damage were associated with the development of synesthesia.

"No," said Deadlock. "I mean that I can see _auras_. My perception of electromagnetism is completely normal."

Ratchet huffed out an incredulous laugh. "I suppose you think ghosts are real, too? And that _Primus_ exists?"

"I do think Primus exists, actually."

Ratchet goggled at him. Up until now, he'd assumed that Deadlock's references to the deity had been ironic. "Aren't Decepticons not supposed to be religious?"

"We oppose _institutional_ religion," said Deadlock. "Some say that also extends to personal faith, but that's only one school of thought. In fact, there's a very strong case to be made that the Decepticon ideological framework doesn't work unless one assumes that Primus exists."

Ratchet raised an optic ridge. "The Functionists argued for the caste system based on the same premise."

"And they were wrong," Deadlock insisted. "I'm not alone in believing, either. Soundwave agrees with me."

Ratchet rolled his optics. "Well, if _Soundwave_ agrees-"

"My point, Autobot, is that Megatron would never let the D.J.D anywhere _near_ Soundwave. That wouldn't be the case if believing in Primus was an issue for him."

"'Let them'?" asked Ratchet, taken-aback. "Doesn't Megatron _tell_ them who to purge?"

Deadlock scoffed at him. "The D.J.D are acting on their own initiative. Megatron reins them in - directs them where he'd prefer them to go - but he doesn't control them. They'd even take Megatron out, if they thought he'd strayed too far from the path. That's what you Autobots have _never_ understood: Decepticons have complete freedom of conscience. What you see as duplicity and a lack of honor is the exact opposite: we live our truth - and die for it - without any pretty, comforting lies. We're loyal to _ideals_ , rather than mechs."

Ratchet actually snorted. He didn't buy for a single nanoklik that the Decepticons weren't Megatron's glorified fanclub. But it was probably safer not to share that particular sentiment. Instead, he said, "Primus is the prettiest, most comforting lie of all. But I guess it's easier to rationalize all the wanton slaughter if you convince yourself that your victims are going to the Afterspark."

Deadlock shot to his feet, looming over him with burning optics. "And your way is _better_?" Deadlock snarled. "Believing in nothing. Standing for _nothing_. Are you even an Autobot in anything but name?"

Ratchet stared up at Deadlock for a few moments, shocked. In all their time together, Deadlock had never once lost his temper. Not even when Ratchet had openly disagreed with aspects of Decepticon ideology. Indeed, that had always been met with an amused kind of condescension - like Ratchet was a precocious newspark who simply needed guidance.

Ratchet never would've guessed that he'd get to this point by expressing his skepticism about the supernatural, of all things.

Carefully, he said, "I'm a doctor, kid. I can only fix the universe one life at a time." He looked up into those crimson optics, feeling a peculiar sense of triumph. It was good to know that Deadlock wasn't unshakable. Thrilling, even. "I guess it must be frustrating for you. I don't think there's a utopia waiting for any of us at the end of this war, even if my side wins. I don't think there's something better waiting after any of us die, either. You're a fanatic, so you probably can't understand why I'm even fighting at all. But...I am fighting for something I believe in, even if it's not as spectacular as everlasting peace."

"And what, exactly, is that?"

Ratchet paused, considering his answer carefully. "In a cold, unfeeling universe, the only thing that matters is the connections we make with others. That's why I try to save people. That's why I'm on the side that at least pays lip service to the sanctity of life. _All_ life - not just the mechanical kind." Ratchet let out a short huff of laughter. "So I guess you could say...that I fight in the name of love."

Deadlock said nothing for a few moments, apparently processing the words.

And then he burst out laughing.

It wasn't a malicious laugh, either. Deadlock's entire frame vibrated with mirth, sparks streaming from his optics.

"Talk about whiplash," Ratchet muttered, as he finally drank his energon. He couldn't help but notice that Deadlock was very...attractive, unguarded like this. Almost like a completely different person from the mech who'd shot Ignition in the head. Who'd pressed Ratchet down and forced him to open his panel.

The memories were like a punch to the fuel tank, and he abruptly lost his appetite.

He needed to recharge very badly.

Deadlock's amusement had run its course, apparently, and he'd returned to his seat. When he spoke next, his tone was oddly subdued. "Finish it."

Ratchet knew better than to object. However much leeway Deadlock would allow in their conversations, he expected absolute obedience when it came to direct orders. Ratchet managed, just barely, to choke the rest of it down. It sat badly in his tank, though, and he had to lay back against the sofa to stave off a wave of nausea.

He didn't want to be here anymore.

He wanted to be back in his suite even less.

A klik of silence passed, and Ratchet wondered if Deadlock was finally going to dismiss him.

"Ask me for something," Deadlock ordered.

Ratchet mustered enough energy to raise his head so he could give Deadlock a look of bafflement.

"I get that you have pride, Ratchet," Deadlock said, sounding exasperated. "It's admirable, in a way - but this is starting to get ridiculous. You'll be of no use to anyone if you have a nervous breakdown."

Pride? Ratchet didn't know if that was an accurate assessment. It simply hadn't occurred to him to ask Deadlock for anything, after the Decepticon had so flagrantly ignored his first and only request.

Is that what Deadlock had wanted from him, this whole time? An opportunity to be generous? From Deadlock's perspective, unsolicited charity was a form of social coercion. Waiting for Ratchet to ask was probably his twisted idea of respecting boundaries.

Ratchet was suddenly very tempted to tell Deadlock to go frag himself. But he pushed the impulse aside.

"Swerve," said Ratchet, at length. "I'd like to see for myself that he's still alive."

"That can be arranged," said Deadlock. "Anything else?"

Ratchet thought about it, then forced himself to say, "A datapad for my habsuite."

"Done."

Deadlock just looked at Ratchet, then, in that intense way he often did. Actually, _staring_ would be a more accurate description. Ratchet had always assumed Deadlock did it to make him feel uncomfortable, but the Decepticon's earlier admission put the behavior in a whole new light.

"What?" Ratchet asked, unable to keep the mockery from his tone. "Is there something in my 'aura'?"

Deadlock sighed. As if he was - disappointed. As if _Ratchet_ was the one being silly. "Go get some rest," he said.

Ratchet obeyed.

* * *

Swerve was about as well as could be expected.

Alive, but just barely. Ratchet wasn't permitted to examine him, or even speak to him. Flyhigh, who had apparently become the primary guard, was genuinely apologetic.

"Sorry, Doc. But I don't wanna torque off the boss."

It made Ratchet feel like a piece of slag. What right did he have to complain, when Swerve had it so much worse? He should've been doing something more to help his friend, instead of wallowing in his own misery.

Even though he had no clue what he could do to help Swerve. Which was just a reminder of how helpless he was.

There was a datapad waiting on one of the recharge slabs when he was returned to his suite.

* * *

The datapad was mostly filled with Decepticon propaganda.

Ratchet shouldn't have been surprised, really. Deadlock may not have been trying to get him to defect, but it was evidently very important to him that Ratchet know precisely why he was wrong to choose the Autobots.

It contained an annotated copy of Towards Peace - Deadlock's personal copy, Ratchet realized. There were essays: _On the Inferiority of Organic Life_ , _The Case for Technoism_ , and _Expansion or Death: Cybertron's Future Lies in the Stars_. And there were even a few works of fiction, though Ratchet had no doubt that they'd deal heavily with themes relevant to Decepticon ideology.

Oh, and some of Megatron's poetry. Joy.

It took a great deal of restraint not to chuck the damn thing against the wall.

* * *

At last, a new medic was transferred to the base. Glit, a cassette with a beast root mode and considerably more experience than Ambulon. The workload meant that Glit and Ratchet managed alternating shifts, however, and Glit was terse and standoffish with Ratchet in a way that Ambulon had never been.

The biggest benefit was that Ratchet no longer had to deal with the anxiety of leaving patients unattended while he recharged. But the volume of his work didn't actually decrease by any significant degree.

His meetings with Deadlock stopped. He didn't know why. He never saw Deadlock, which meant no opportunity to ask.

He ended up reading every entry on the datapad. It was the only distraction he had, after all. 

But he always came away from the experience feeling even worse.

* * *

A deca-cycle into the unexplained shift in his routine, and Ratchet was awoken from recharge by somebody shaking him. He opened his optics to find Deadlock.

Ratchet probably should've been alarmed, but he wasn't. Maybe because there was something unprecedented in Deadlock's expression. Something that looked an awful lot like longing.

Ratchet opened his mouth to ask what Deadlock was doing there, only to have the words die in his vocalizer when Deadlock started tracing one of his hands over Ratchet's windshield. Ratchet released a shaky ex-vent.

And then Deadlock was leaning down. Kissing him. Hungry, searing kisses that resonated deep inside Ratchet's spark. His hands stroking over Ratchet's armor with an almost reverent kind of gentleness. Like Ratchet was precious to him. Like he cared.

And Ratchet was tired. So tired and so lonely and he _needed_ this. He reached out and pulled Deadlock fully on top of him. Wrapped his arms around him, running his hands over Deadlock's back.

Deadlock shivered and sighed into Ratchet's mouth. A thrill ran up Ratchet's spinal strut. It was a little like the thrill he'd gotten seeing Deadlock become visibly angry, only better. He suddenly wanted to wring as many reactions out of Deadlock as he could.

They kissed at a languid, unhurried pace. There was no talking, this time. No taunting. No mocking questions or speculation. No cold, impersonal demands. Just kisses and touches and soft, pleased noises.

Ratchet didn't know why his mind insisted on even reminding him of the last time. It wasn't as though dwelling on it would change a damn thing. He just wanted to feel something good, for a change. So he pushed those thoughts aside and focused on how wonderful this felt, instead.

When Deadlock ran a probing hand over his panel, it felt only natural to transform it away. Ratchet's valve throbbed in anticipation, and he spread his legs wider. He wanted badly to be touched.

But he felt something far larger than a finger pressing into the rim of his valve. Stretching him. With a start, Ratchet's optics snapped open and he tried to find his voice, but Deadlock just swallowed his protests with a kiss. Deadlock kept pressing inside, deeper and deeper until the tip of his spike was flush against the very top of Ratchet's valve.

They were - they were interfacing. They weren't even friends, let alone sparkmates, and they were _interfacing_.

Ratchet's panic was undercut by the interface connection activating with an intense wash of sensation. He was so _full._  Deadlock's spike was hitting nodes that he was sure had never been touched before. But even more than that, he could feel the echo of what it was like for _Deadlock_. What it felt like to be enveloped by slick, grasping metal mesh. To have hands digging into the kibble on his back.

Ratchet was causing Deadlock...pain?

The thought slipped away from him as Deadlock began to move, his spike dragging along the walls of Ratchet's valve with exquisite friction. Ratchet's entire frame was alight with charge, his fans roaring in his audio receptors, and he was sure for a nanoklik that he was going to overload. But he didn't. The excess charge flowed into Deadlock, instead, and the Decepticon groaned as he released a spurt of transfluid.

Ratchet knew, intellectually, what interfacing entailed. He'd read about it often enough in medical literature. But that couldn't have prepared him for what it was actually like to experience it. The sensory feedback loop intensified as the connection deepened, and it was almost too much to bear.

There was a great deal of overlap, neurologically speaking, between a Cybertronian's sensory and emotional networks. It was therefore only logical that an unusually intense sensory experiencing would lead to an intense level of emotional arousal.

Ratchet had never felt so good before - as if every sensory receptor in his body was pulsing with charge.

He was also terribly, achingly sad.

And he needed it to be over. He managed, just barely, to break the kiss. "Please," he choked out, though the word was barely intelligible through the static. "Drift, _please_."

Deadlock answered him by increasing the strength of his thrusts. Kissed him again, desperately. And then finally, finally, they were overloading, the bliss drowning out everything else.

When the waves of charge at last receded, Ratchet's chronometer told him that four kliks had passed. But it had felt so much longer than that. Ratchet's frame thrummed with lassitude, even as the emotional reprieve came to an abrupt and unwelcome end.

He was vaguely aware of Deadlock's spike depressurizing. Of the slick warmth of transfluid inside of him. He closed his panel, hoping that it would make him feel less exposed. But it didn't. He trembled, trying and failing to stem the stream of sparks being emitted from his optics. He couldn't remember the last time he'd permitted himself to cry.

"Ratchet…" Deadlock's voice was shaky. "Ratchet, look at me."

He focused his gaze on Deadlock, only to find that the Decepticon was crying too. He thought that maybe he should say something, but nothing came to mind. It was apparently enough for Deadlock, though, who went through a shuddering vent cycle and buried his face against Ratchet's neck.

There wasn't much room on the recharge slab, so Deadlock had to half drape himself over Ratchet in order to avoid falling off. Ratchet didn't know how to feel about it. The contact felt like a lifeline. He didn't know what he'd do if he were left alone, just then. And yet...

"I don't understand you," Ratchet said. "You don't-" He reset his vocalizer, to try and clear what remained of the static. "You hate me."

Deadlock huffed out a weak little laugh. "I wish that I could hate you," he said. "You're the most frustrating person I've ever met."

"You said you were going to kill me," Ratchet reminded him, his spark aching.

"I was lying," Deadlock murmured.

There were several kliks of silence.

"I _see_ things, sometimes," said Deadlock. "I guess you could call them 'visions'. But sometimes they're more like...feelings. And when I saw you that first time, at the clinic - I _knew_ that you were my sparkmate." He let out an unsteady ex-vent. "I know how you think, Ratchet. You'll blame it on the Syk. Say that I was just - hallucinating. But I _wasn't_." Deadlock stroked a hand up Ratchet's arm. "We're meant to be together."

Ratchet felt a flare of disbelief. "Well, you have a funny way of showing it, kid."

Deadlock stiffened against him, then said, "I was angry with you." As if - as if that explained it, somehow. "I'm _still_ angry with you, Ratchet. But - we need to move forward. Things are changing, and I'm going to need you to trust me."

It hadn't really occurred to Ratchet before, that Deadlock may be insane. Resentful, yes. Fanatical, yes. But crazy? Ratchet would never have taken it quite that far. Maybe you just couldn't reach a certain level in the Decepticon hierarchy without being at least a little bit unhinged.

Ratchet thought back to that kid he'd met at the clinic. It wasn't a surprise, really, that he'd latched on to the first mech to show him any compassion - however flawed and inadequate it was. It was even less of a surprise that he'd fallen into Megatron's orbit, once the system had continued to fail him.

Forgiveness was a tall order. Especially when Deadlock didn't seem to think it was something that he needed. But...Ratchet could be sad, for the kid he'd met. Who'd been broken and twisted into a tool for Megatron's glorified vanity project. Who'd been so desperate for someone to rely on that he'd imagined himself a sparkmate in the doctor who'd saved his life, but hadn't managed to save his spark.

It was sad in a way that Ratchet could scarcely fathom, and he was so, so tired.

He wrapped his arms around Deadlock.

They lay there together, in silence, until Ratchet fell back into recharge.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. I'm so sorry for the delay, but I started a new job. Also, this was very heavy to write, so it took a lot of stops and starts before I built up momentum.
> 
> As always, please do take the tags seriously.

Ratchet came out of recharge with a start when the door to his habsuite opened. He pushed himself up -- an easy task, without an incongruously heavy speedster pinning him down. Deadlock must have left while Ratchet had been unconscious. 

The mech at the door was one of the nameless mooks. “Washracks,” he said, tersely.

Ratchet nodded once, realizing suddenly just how dirty he felt. The transfluid was already gone from his valve, of course, having been automatically drawn up into his fuel tank to mingle with the unmodified energon already there. 

Some bots found the whole thing terribly romantic: a partner’s transfluid, repurposed as fuel. Coursing through their lines for however many cycles after coupling. (Between twelve and thirty, according to the medical literature. Depending on fuel levels prior to interface.)

The timing, Ratchet reflected, couldn’t have been better. 

* * *

Standing under the warm spray of the solvent didn’t provide Ratchet with the relief he was hoping for, but it did give him something of a meditative space to gather his thoughts. And he realized, for the first time since this nightmare had begun, that he finally felt as though he understood everything.

He was reminded of the far-fetched and lurid tales he’d heard from some of his upper-caste patients. Of buymechs getting a wealthy or influential client to interface with them -- usually through subterfuge -- in order to establish an emotional attachment. Becoming the dirty little secrets that their patrons couldn’t bear to be rid of. Ratchet had always chalked such talk up to an obnoxious cocktail of elite boredom and classism. The perverse need for juicy gossip to wile away the eons of idle privilege.

Ratchet still didn’t put any stock in those rumors. But he was beginning to suspect that there had indeed been cases where such boundaries had been violated; he just doubted that it was the vulnerable, disenfranchised buymechs that had been the responsible parties. 

The patrons of buymechs had certainly been lonely. Perhaps even desperately so. But they’d also usually been the sorts of mechs who’d had no lack of potential suitors. It stood to reason, then, that they’d made use of buymechs because it put them in a position of _power_ over their partners. And that some of them might not have been content to stay within the bounds of a professional ‘arrangement’. It was all too easy to see how such a dynamic might appeal to a very specific kind of mech. 

It was all too easy to see why such a dynamic might appeal to _Deadlock_. Just another way of reclaiming the power that had been stripped from him under the old regime. Of turning the tables. 

Intimacy, sans vulnerability.

Syk really was a hell of a drug. Ratchet didn’t doubt that Deadlock really believed in his ability to ‘see auras’ and catch glimpses of the future. He also didn’t doubt the sincerity of Deadlock’s...fixation? Obsession? Whatever label suited it best, Ratchet knew that it was pathological. The elites of the past had risked only their reputations; by violating the Decepticon ban on fraternization, Deadlock was risking his _life_.

It should’ve all been terrifying, really. But Ratchet found a twisted kind of comfort in finally knowing exactly where he stood and what was expected of him. He’d always appreciated clarity of purpose. 

Deadlock wanted a relationship. Or, more precisely, the _illusion_ of one. And Ratchet didn’t really see any point in fighting it. Maybe old age was eating away at his fortitude, but he would take almost anything over returning to that all-encompassing loneliness.

And hell -- the next time they interfaced, Ratchet might even enjoy it. 

* * *

Unsurprisingly, he was called to Deadlock’s office after his shift ended.

When he arrived, Deadlock held out a cube of energon and said, “We should talk about what happened.”

It took Ratchet real effort not to roll his optics. He didn’t have the energy to play along with Deadlock’s little farce. 

So he walked up to Deadlock, took the energon, and set it aside. “Or we can do something else,” he said, reaching up to run his hands over Deadlock’s chestplate. Deadlock clearly hadn’t expected it, and the way his optics widened was incredibly satisfying. Ratchet leaned in closer, until he could feel the buzz of Deadlock’s EM field.

“Ratchet--”

Ratchet kissed him, then, cutting off whatever useless slag he’d been planning to say. And Deadlock didn’t try to stop it. In fact, he practically _melted_ into it, sinking down to rest his aft on the edge of the desk. Slipping his arms around Ratchet’s back to pull him in closer.

Sparkmates, Deadlock had said. That was the kind of illusory dynamic he was after. Absolute control, but with the pretense of something mutual. Deadlock probably wanted to feel desired. Cared for. 

Ratchet thought that he could manage that, when Deadlock was like _this_. It actually felt a little bit like taking back control. So maybe Ratchet wasn’t putting up a fight, but he could still set the _parameters_ of his capitulation. That was better than nothing.

And there was an undeniable appeal in Deadlock’s little sighs of pleasure. In the way he shivered when Ratchet touched him _just so_. Ratchet felt a surge genuine arousal pulsing through his frame.

It occurred to him that this might be the result of their previous coupling: the bonding chemicals working their way into his processor. But was that really so bad? At that moment, it was as though all the loneliness had evaporated. And it was such a relief that Ratchet almost felt...grateful.

He let one of his hands fall to Deadlock’s panel, which was obligingly transformed away. Ratchet pressed in to find that Deadlock had slid his valve cover aside. The outer mesh was already slick with lubricant.

He thumbed over Deadlock’s anterior node. Felt how it was already crackling with charge. Deadlock shuddered bodily, gasping into Ratchet’s mouth. 

He broke off the kiss as Ratchet began to circle his node in slow, steady strokes. “Inside me,” he ex-vented. 

Ratchet’s cooling fans roared as he slipped two fingers into the slick heat of Deadlock’s valve, curling them against the nodes within.

Deadlock groaned, pressing his hips forward. Dragging Ratchet’s fingers in deeper. “Your spike,” he said. “ _Please_.” 

There was something so intoxicating about the fact that Deadlock was _asking_. That was part of the farce, of course, but even Ratchet’s cynicism could do little to dampen its visceral appeal. Ratchet pulled back in order to look at Deadlock’s face, finding that his optics were bright - his expression open and wanting. 

Deadlock really was beautiful like this, and Ratchet’s panel transformed away without any conscious prompting. His felt his spike pressurizing as he removed his fingers from Deadlock’s valve. 

Deadlock took Ratchet’s hand and raised it up to his mouth, laving at the soiled digits with his tongue. Then Deadlock took them fully into his mouth, and Ratchet shuddered at the sensation of Deadlock’s sharpened canines scraping gently over the hyper-sensitive plating. At the drag of his tongue over delicate seams. But it was the visual -- at once intimate and filthy -- that went straight to Ratchet’s spike.

He wanted this, he realized. He wanted it badly.

“Couch?” Ratchet asked. He was unsure, despite his eagerness, about the logistics of interfacing on the desk.

Deadlock made a sound of assent around Ratchet’s fingers, before pulling off of them with an obscene _pop_. They were still soiled, only with a different variety of lubricant. Ratchet’s spike actually _twitched_ at the thought.

The next few kliks were a blur of clumsy, eager kisses as they stumbled together to the one of the couches. Ratchet found himself lying on top of Deadlock, not quite remembering how they ended up in that position, his spike pressing tantalizingly against the rim of Deadlock’s valve.

Deadlock wrapped strong legs around Ratchet’s hips, pulling him in, and the resulting burst of charge briefly shorted out Ratchet’s optics. 

“Primus,“ Deadlock moaned. 

“Sorry to disappoint, kid,“ Ratchet said, managing just barely not to collapse onto Deadlock’s chest from the wave of euphoria. “Pretty sure it’s just me.“

Deadlock let out a strained, staticky laugh. “You’re impossible,“ he said, with an easy fondness that Ratchet didn’t quite know how to process.

Ratchet’s optics came back online to find Deadlock was also looking up at him with a softness that pulled at something deep inside Ratchet’s spark. He leaned forward to kiss Deadlock, the bittersweet feeling unfurling within him like strong engex, and slowly began to pump his hips. 

It was undeniably different, this time. Not so much physically -- the tactile feedback meant that the line between his and Deadlock’s sensations grew ever thinner as the charge continued to build. But emotionally, it was on a completely different level.

At that moment, he felt closer to Deadlock than he had to just about anyone else in his life. And he wanted to make that feeling last. He kept his thrusts slow, deliberate. Drew out the buildup of charge for as long as he could. But eventually he reached a threshold of combined sensation and emotion so intense that he could no longer think -- just _feel_ \-- and all his control slipped away.

Overload hit him hard, blazing through him in a torrent of pure, uncomplicated bliss. And when it receded this time, he was left with nothing but a sense of strut-deep contentment. He collapsed on top of Deadlock with a laguid sigh.

After a few kliks of comfortable silence, Deadlock said, “ _Wow_.”

“Yeah,” Ratchet agreed.

“I guess it’s true, what they say. First time is catharsis; second time is communion.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Ratchet said, feeling his spike depressurize automatically. He didn’t really want it to. It felt _right_ to be connected, even without the charge.

Deadlock chuckled. “The spiritual component of interfacing isn’t touched upon much in medical journals, huh?”

“Not as such, no,” Ratchet confirmed dryly.

“You should fuel,” said Deadlock. “You really filled me up.” This part was said soft and low, with an undeniable undercurrent of heat. Ratchet suspected it would’ve charged him up if he hadn’t been completely spent.

“Later,” Ratchet said, that bittersweet feeling from earlier rekindling in his spark. 

Deadlock didn’t object, only shifted Ratchet a little so that they fit together less awkwardly. After a few kliks of just basking in the closeness, Ratchet finally found a way to put that feeling into words. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I failed you, back in Rodion. I should’ve--” he paused, going through a vent cycle, “-- I should’ve done more to help you.”

“Ratchet…” Deadlock sounded like he was already halfway to recharge. “You were my _hero_. I put you on a pedestal for centuries because of what you did for me that day. The only thing that ever bothered me about it was that you didn’t let me repay my debt.” Deadlock ran a lazy hand up Ratchet’s spinal strut. “I was an addict, and I wasn’t _ready_ to be helped. Besides -- the entire system was broken. Nobody could’ve fixed it alone.”

Another klik passed before Deadlock continued, sounding much more awake. “Obviously it would be a lie to say that I’m not bothered by things you’ve done in the past. But _that_ will never be one of them.” 

“Then...why?”

Deadlock sighed. “It doesn’t matter. When I said that we need to move forward together, I meant it.” He pressed a sweet, tender kiss into Ratchet’s neck cables. “Now, go fuel before you fall into stasis lock.” 

* * *

 

Over the following deca-cycle, the biggest change to the status quo was, of course, that they interfaced. A lot. Sometimes in Ratchet’s habsuite. More often, in Deadlock’s office.

But their relationship also changed in other, more subtle ways. They sat next to each other, now, when they talked. Deadlock would sling his arm over Ratchet’s shoulders, sometimes, or lean against him. Casually. As if it were perfectly natural. 

And Ratchet found himself divulging things that he’d never discussed with anyone else.

Like now. They’d been talking about what they were planning to do after the war was over. Deadlock was convinced that it was his destiny to find the Knights of Cybertron. And Ratchet had been kind enough not to point out how ridiculous that was.

Instead, he was sharing his deepest, darkest anxiety.

“The truth is, before I came here, I always thought that I’d be scrap before the war was over.” 

“That’s morbid,” said Deadlock. “Any particular reason why?” 

Ratchet held up his hands, wiggling the fingers. “My hands’ve frozen up a few times, these past centuries. I think that I’m getting old. I mean, _really_ old. And I think it’s only a matter of time before they stop working altogether.” He chuckled, letting them fall back his sides. “It’s almost a relief, actually. Knowing that I’ll outlive my usefulness here long before that ever happens. Without my work, I think I’d just...waste away.” He gave Deadlock a sardonic little smile. “So, either way, I guess I won’t be joining you on that quest of yours.”

Deadlock scoffed, even as he ran a hand idly up and down Ratchet’s thigh. “Do you really think I’ll toss you away once you’re no longer able to work as a doctor? Decepticons explicitly reject functionism, remember?”

Ratchet didn’t point out that Deadlock probably wouldn’t be the one who was making the decision. “This isn’t about form dictating function, kid. This is about me becoming an energon siphon who can’t do slag to earn his keep.”

“Don’t worry, Ratch,” said Deadlock, a playful smirk playing across his lips. “I’ll find a use for you.”

The implication was obvious, but Ratchet was too distracted by the nickname to give it the scorn it deserved. “‘Ratch’?” 

Deadlock suddenly looked unsure. “...You don’t like it?”

“It’s not that,” Ratchet said. “It’s just that don’t have a cutesy nickname to call you back. ‘Deadlock’ isn’t really conducive to shortening.” He’d meant it to come out as a joke. But, once the words had left his vocalizer, he realized that it maybe it wasn’t a joke at all.

Deadlock ducked his head in a way that looked almost...shy. “You can call me Drift,” he said softly. “I mean, you do it anyway. When we interface.”

“I -- didn’t realize,” Ratchet said. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“No.” Deadlock looked up at Ratchet, still oddly hesitant. “Not so long as we’re alone.”

It was the strangest thing. In that moment, Ratchet had the distinct impression that he was the one who held all the cards. That if he said the wrong thing, he’d crush Deadlock’s spark.

He didn’t want to think about the consequences if he fragged this up.

“Drift it is,” he said, tasting the name on his tongue. Deadlock’s face split into a wide, sincere smile, and it made Ratchet’s spark feel like it was going to burst. 

Then Deadlock surged forward to kiss him, desperately. Like he was starving and Ratchet was energon. 

Their conversation came to an abrupt end.

* * *

 

Ratchet realized that he was something close to happy. 

Happier than he’d been in a very long time, at any rate. And he tried not to dwell on just what that said about him as a person. He might have felt differently, if he’d been here alone. But he wasn’t.

He owed it to Swerve to try to do _something_. And the only thing that he could think of was asking Deadlock for a favor. It took him several solar cycles to work up the nerve. 

That was certainly a stark reminder of how this wasn’t really a normal relationship. Ratchet wasn’t generally the sort to ask for favors, but it had never been because he feared the possible backlash. He didn’t know how long this thing between him and Deadlock could continue. Until Deadlock inevitably got caught, probably. But, for however long that was, Ratchet knew that he’d never stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“What is it?” Deadlock asked him, the moment he stepped into the office. For once, he was actually _sitting_ behind the desk. It looked entirely incongruous.

Ratchet smiled crookedly, his amusement at the scene briefly overriding his nerves. He sat down in one of the chairs on the opposite side of the desk and said, “That obvious, huh?”

“Your aura goes bright orange whenever you’re nervous. It’s a dead giveaway.”

Again with the fragging _auras_. Ratchet’s annoyance was enough to get him to finally spit it out. “Can you increase Swerve’s rations? Maybe -- let him out of his cell every once in a while?”

Deadlock raised an optic ridge. “Flyhigh’s already been dipping into his own rations to supplement Swerve’s. I knew he’d be the only bot on the base who could put up with the constant chatter for extended periods of time, but I think they’ve actually become friends.” 

That had _not_ been the response that Ratchet was expecting. “And you’re okay with this?”

“They’re _his_ rations,” said Deadlock with a shrug. “Flyhigh may not be the most _competent_ Decepticon, but he’s loyal to the Cause. Liking an individual Autobot enough to share your rations doesn’t equal treason.”

That made sense, given Deadlock’s apparent disregard for the Decepticon rules against fraternization. It made Ratchet feel slightly better, knowing that there was somebody else looking out for Swerve. “What about the other thing?” 

Deadlock sighed. “I’m sorry, Ratch, but no. There’s just no way to swing that.”

Right. Ratchet had always known that Decepticons were obsessed with appearances. They would deny it, of course, but everything they did had to be filtered through considerations about saving face and projecting a sense of absolute loyalty to the Cause. Maybe this wasn’t always the case in the lower ranks, if Flyhigh was anything to go by. But for those in positions of authority, it was the guiding principle of their lives.

It was pretty depressing to be around, even considering all the other slag that Ratchet was putting up with. 

“You’re mad at me,” Deadlock said, frowning slightly.

“I’m not mad at _you_ , Drift,” Ratchet groused. “I’m mad at --” He ran a hand over his face, ex-venting hard. “-- the _system_ , I guess. I get why you can’t let him run around the base, okay? That doesn’t mean I have to _like_ it.” At least he knew that Swerve wasn’t on the verge of starvation, anymore. That counted for something, right? “Don’t you ever get tired of it?”

At once, Deadlock’s posture stiffened. “Tired of what?”

“Of constantly having to -- put on a show. I get exhausted just _watching_ you. I mean, how are you even hiding the fact the you and I are--”

“Together?”

“ _Fraternizing_.”

Deadlock stood up and walked around the desk, then crouched down in front of Ratchet’s chair. His optics burned crimson. “You don’t have to worry about it, Ratch. Just know that I always take care of what’s mine.”

Ratchet felt a frisson of charge run through his frame. Deadlock must’ve noticed it too, because he smirked and fell fully to his knees, running his hands over Ratchet’s thighs. “Open up for me, and I’ll show you how _else_ I take care of what’s mine.”

Ratchet wasn’t expecting the wave of panic that followed him spreading his legs and transforming his panel away. 

_"Now be a good Autobot and move this aside.”_

Another wave of panic, this one more intense. His fuel pump pounded as energon rushed in his audio receptors. 

Deep invents, he reminded himself. Slow. Steady. How many times had he stayed cool under pressure? What was _this_ , compared to a field surgery? 

His processor spat up the gruesome image of Ignition lying on the grey dirt, staining it with the fluids from his ruined cranial casing.

And then he became vaguely aware of somebody saying his name. Of a hand, gripping his shoulder. 

As he began to consciously register external sensory input once more, he recognized that Deadlock was no longer between his legs. He was looking down at Ratchet, instead, his expression unreadable.

Ratchet couldn’t hold Deadlock’s gaze.

“I think it’s best if we stop here for today,” said Deadlock. “You clearly need some rest.”

Ratchet closed his panel and shakily got to his feet. He swayed for a moment, certain he’d overbalance and fall on his aft, but Deadlock reached out to steady him.

“I’m sorry,” Ratchet said, and meant it. 

“It’s fine,” Deadlock replied, in a carefully neutral tone that suggested it was anything but. He let go of Ratchet’s arm. “Everything is going to be just fine.”

* * *

Things had been awkward since the...incident. In fact, things had gone back to how they’d been before Deadlock had come to Ratchet’s habsuite. No physical contact; always at a distance. Cordial, but not anything close to intimate. He guessed that it was Deadlock’s way of giving him space.

Ratchet hated it. 

He hadn’t seen Deadlock in several solar cycles, and he had a distinct sense of foreboding as he was escorted to Deadlock’s office. He told himself that he was just being needlessly paranoid. 

It did nothing to make the feeling go away.

Deadlock was standing in front of his desk when Ratchet entered the office, a paint nozzle in hand.

“What’s this all about?” Ratchet asked, jerking his head at the paint dispenser at Deadlock’s feet.

Deadlock pointed to the spot on Ratchet’s chest where his Autobrand used to be, which Ratchet had removed after one of his patients had attacked him for being ‘Autobot scum’. The mech in question had thankfully been too heavily sedated to do any actual damage, but Ratchet had gotten the message loud and clear. “You’re going to wear the Decepticon badge,” Deadlock said, matter-of-factly, holding up the paint nozzle. 

Ratchet scoffed at him. “Whatever happened to me having lost my chance to be on the right side of history?”

Deadlock huffed out an exasperated ex-vent. “That’s still true, Ratch. Nobody ever buys defections from captives. Let alone from captives who are obviously Autobot loyalists.”

“So -- what? Is it some kind of fashion statement?”

“It’s a _gesture_ ,” Deadlock said. 

That was when it clicked. “Of submission.”

“That’s right.” Deadlock set the nozzle aside and walked up to Ratchet, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I told you that things are going to change. That you need to trust me.” Deadlock looked Ratchet straight in the optics, expression earnest. “ _Can_ you trust me -- even a tiny bit?”

It was hard to keep the outrage going when Deadlock looked at him like that. “Tell me what’s ‘changing’, and I’ll think about it.”

Deadlock’s hand dropped to his side, his gaze shifting away from Ratchet’s.

“It’s not like you to be cagey,” Ratchet said. 

Several nanokliks of silence passed, before Deadlock finally said, “There’s been a shift in the logistics of the war.”

“No slag,” Ratchet noted, dryly. As if the influx of injured Decepticons hadn’t been a tipoff. “I thought we’d established that I’m not an idiot.”

“We’re getting a garrison. And a new commander.” One of Deadlock’s hands had curled into a fist. “Turmoil.”

That was a name that Ratchet recognized. “Well, frag,” he said. Deadlock had a reputation for ruthlessness -- one that Ratchet could attest to. But Turmoil had one for cold, calculating sadism. Ratchet’s fuel tank gave a lurch as he realized the implications. “He’s not going to keep Swerve alive.”

“Worry about _yourself_ ,” Deadlock snapped, and the abrupt shift in his demeanor almost made Ratchet flinch. 

Almost, but not quite. He was still a _doctor,_ after all. And it was those same professional instincts that stopped him from asking Deadlock to just...let Swerve go. At least he still had the good sense to realize how insane that would be before the words left his vocalizer. 

Deadlock was touching him again, his voice suddenly soothing. “I know you feel responsible for him, and I know how much you take that to spark.” 

Of course Deadlock knew. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have used Swerve’s life as a bludgeon so many times. “I’m sensing a ‘but’,” Ratchet muttered.

“But,” Deadlock said, “there’s nothing you can do to help him. Turmoil doesn’t negotiate. With anyone.”

Ratchet was actually surprised by how little he was reacting to the news. Now that the initial jolt of panic had faded, he was just...numb. 

“Can you give me a couple of solar cycles to just...come to terms with it?”

Something passed over Deadlock’s face for just a moment. Annoyance, maybe. But it was gone too quickly to tell. “Okay,” he said. “But this isn’t really negotiable, Ratch. And it’s not like I’m asking you to give up part of your spark casing.”

Did Deadlock really not get that this was about more than just ideological differences? That getting the badge painted on was basically accepting that he’d failed Swerve completely?

He was suddenly very aware of Deadlock’s hand on his shoulder. Of just how long it had been since Deadlock had touched him at all. He wanted to be closer. To maybe feel something other than numbness.

He wrapped his arms around Deadlock’s middle and tilted his head in for a kiss, but Deadlock turned his mouth away at the last nanoklik. Ratchet’s lips clacked awkwardly against the metal of Deadlock’s cheek, instead.

“We’ll celebrate after you take your brand,” said Deadlock, pulling away from the embrace.

Ratchet suddenly felt very cold.

* * *

 

He returned to his habsuite to find that there was a notification waiting for him. He still felt oddly detached from reality as he picked up his datapad and opened the as-of-yet unused comm application. 

?? => [Ratchet]

??: hey  
RT: Who is this?  
??: doesn’t matter  
??: not yet anyways

There was a pause of several nanokliks as the mysterious mech apparently considered how to proceed.

??: deadlock’s been acting weird ever since you arrived  
??: edgy  
??: i mean he’s always been a bit edgy  
??: but like  
??: more than usual  
??: ordered us not to talk to you unless it was 100% necessary  
??: said something about ‘strategic isolation’  
??: idk  
??: it sounded like a bunch of slag to me  
??: then there are the private meetings in his office  
??: and there’s suspicious gaps in the surveillance footage from outside your habsuite  
??: so i’m pretty sure he’s fragging you  
??: no judgement  
??: i don’t know how much of a choice he’s giving you  
??: but he’s obvs not thinking straight

Ratchet stared down at the chat window for the duration of a vent cycle, then forced himself to reply. 

RT: Because of the change in management?  
??: oh  
??: i wasn’t expecting you to know about that already  
??: but yeah  
??: there’s no way that turmoil is going to let you stay in a cushy habsuite   
??: just for starters  
??: and i get the feeling that deadlock is in denial about it  
RT: Why’re you telling me any of this?  
??: because i’m going to break you out

Ratchet did a double-take.

RT: Because you care so damn much about my welfare.  
??: no, not really  
??: but i do care about swerve  
??: and he’d never agree to go unless i got you out too

Was this _Flyhigh_? Ratchet could scarcely wrap his head around the possibility.

??: i don’t expect you to believe me  
??: i just don’t want you to be surprised when it happens  
??: we won’t have time for messing about  
??: ‘cause we have to get the frag out of dodge before deadlock figures out what i’m planning

\- ?? has gone idle -

There were many important aspects of the correspondence before him, and he knew intellectually that the most important one was the matter of his potential escape.

But the one that was actually lodged in his processor was the matter of ‘strategic isolation’.

The words burned in Ratchet’s mind -- squeezed at his spark. It had never occurred to him that there was anything _calculated_ about his loneliness. He’d assumed that it was just standard operating procedure for indentured Autobot prisoners.

But now, it was all fitting into place. The lack of guards. Ambulon being sent away. Nobody even bothering to tell Ratchet their names, and the ones who had at the start being assigned to other tasks. The endless cycles of solitude. 

Deadlock, the only point of social contact. 

He felt like such an _idiot_. He’d allowed himself to get sucked into the farce. To believe that it was something more than an elaborate power trip. To think that Deadlock actually gave some sort of a damn about him.

Because it had been easier. Because it had made him _happy_.

Or at least something other than lonely. And of _course_ he’d been lonely; Deadlock had made damn sure of it.

He tossed the datapad aside and lay back on his recharge slab, staring up at the ceiling.

Recharge didn’t come.

* * *

 

It was difficult to focus during his shift, only partly due to lack of rest. He’d hoped that Deadlock would give him another solar cycle of distance, so that Ratchet could try to gather his thoughts better. Maybe try to calm down. But his escort took him to Deadlock’s office instead of his own habsuite.

Deadlock was holding the paint nozzle again, and it took all Ratchet’s fraying self-control not to launch immediately into a tirade.

“Someone’s angry,” Deadlock noted.

“Yeah,” said Ratchet. “That’s one way to put it.”

Deadlock set the nozzle down on his desk, then leaned against it. Infuriatingly nonchalant. “Are you going to tell me why?”

There was no point in dragging it out, and Ratchet wouldn’t have wanted to even if there was. He felt like he was going to explode. “I just finally figured it out.” He let out a harsh ex-vent. “Your little game, I mean. Isolating me until I’m _this close_ to going insane, then swooping in just before I take the plunge. Because that’s when you know that I’ll be desperate enough to let my guard down.”

“It’s not a game,” said Deadlock.

Ratchet let out a laugh that bordered on hysterical, then said, “I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Told myself that you were a hopeless spark that got drawn in by Megatron’s empty promises. But you really are just another genericon sadist, aren’t you? I should’ve realized it when you sent Ambulon off to be put through hell without blinking a fragging optic!”

“Ambulon is doing his duty for the Cause,” said Deadlock. “And you’re the only one here who’s to blame for that.”

“And just what the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?” Ratchet demanded. He was shaking with fury.

Deadlock remained impassive. “If you’d joined us when you had the chance, the war would’ve been over a very long time ago.”

Ratchet just stood there for a few nanokliks, gaping, completely flabbergasted by the sheer insanity of that statement. At last, he managed to say, “Is that why you’ve been punishing me? Because you blame me for the war not being over?”

Deadlock let out a long-suffering sigh. “I haven’t been punishing you, Ratch.”

“Don’t call me that!” Ratchet yelled.

That was what finally broke Deadlock’s cool. He pushed off from the desk, glaring. “You learn things, living in the Dead End,” he said. “For me, the most important lesson was that you need to temper your expectations. Fantasies don’t fill up empty fuel tanks.” His mouth twisted. “In my perfect universe, we would’ve had _centuries_ to come to each other. Wouldn’t that have been nice, _Ratchet_? We could’ve argued and bantered and flirted. And when we finally decided to be together, we wouldn’t have even needed to say the words. We’d have just - known.” 

He was suddenly moving towards Ratchet with predatory purpose, optics blazing. Ratchet felt a stab of fear mixing in with his rage, compelling him to back up in the face of Deadlock’s approach. His retreat was halted, however, by the solid metal of the office wall. Deadlock’s hands landed on Ratchet’s shoulders - fingers digging into the metal of his pauldrons. “But none of that could happen, because you chose the _wrong side_. So now we’re stuck with _this_ instead.”

“And you saw this all in one of your _visions_?” Ratchet sneered, resisting the vain urge to squirm away from Deadlock’s vice-like grip. He knew it was stupid to antagonize Deadlock, but he was so _angry_. Too angry to even stay afraid. “Give me a fragging break. You wanted me to suffer because I’m a proxy for everything that made _you_ suffer. Stop pretending that this has ever been about anything besides _power_!”

The blow came so suddenly that Ratchet couldn’t even brace for it, his head whipping to the side on impact. His right audio receptor was ringing, and he could taste energon in his mouth. The sharp, sudden pain took several nanokliks to mellow into a throbbing ache. When he prodded his teeth with his tongue, he could feel that a few of them had been loosened.

Ratchet looked back at Deadlock, finding only a mask of ruthlessness.

Or maybe it _wasn’t_ a mask. Maybe this had been the reality all along. Maybe the kid Ratchet had met in his clinic was really gone. Another casualty of the war. 

Just like that, his anger fizzled out -- replaced by a wave of grief so intense that he was dizzy with it.

He wished, very suddenly, that the anger would come back.

“Who told you?” Deadlock asked, voice low and dangerous.

“Nobody _told_ me,” Ratchet lied, intense stabs of pain emanating from his jaw as he formed the words. “It was obvious once I put the pieces together.”

Deadlock’s gaze was frigid. “I’ll give you a solar cycle to decide whether or not you’ll tell me the truth. After that, you won’t have to wait for Turmoil. I’ll make you watch as I take your friend in the brig apart.” 

This was normally the part where Deadlock switched gears. Where he said something intimate or reassuring. Absurdly, Ratchet found himself expecting it, even as the pain reminded him that this was nothing like the other times that he and Deadlock had disagreed. That the true nature of the farce had finally been revealed.

The switch didn’t come, of course. And it hurt almost as much as the blow.

Ratchet didn’t need to be told to leave.

* * *

[Ratchet] => ??

RT: I fragged up.  
RT: Deadlock doesn’t know about the plans, but he suspects that somebody’s been giving me information against his orders.  
RT: He’s going to kill Swerve in a solar cycle if I don’t tell him about you.  
RT: If you’re serious about getting both of us out, then you’d better get your aft moving.  
RT: My shift starts in 12 cycles.

* * *

The waiting was agonizing. Flyhigh -- Ratchet was 90% sure it was Flyhigh -- hadn’t responded, even though the messages had been read. Ratchet could only hope that this meant he’d taken the warning seriously.

Self-repair had dulled the pain in Ratchet’s jaw. The pain in his spark was another matter entirely. 

He really was a pathetic old fool, wasn’t he? His thoughts spiralled into a vortex of regret and self-loathing and grief. He was angry at himself for letting his guard down, but not nearly enough to distract from just how much he already missed the bond that he and Deadlock had shared. 

It didn’t matter that it had never been real. It had _felt_ real -- however rough around the edges it’d been. And there’d been a part of him convinced that it would be the last good thing that he would ever experience, before he inevitably outlived his usefulness. Or until Deadlock slipped up and got caught.

The habsuite door opened, and the noise jolted him out of his ever-deepening malaise. Lo and behold. Flyhigh was there with Swerve in tow. And, true to Deadlock’s report, Swerve did indeed look better than the last time Ratchet had seen him. For all that he was practically radiating panic.

“Not to be impolite,” said Flyhigh, “but there’s really no time to chat.”

That was good, because Ratchet really wasn’t in the mood to chat. Silently, he followed them out of his prison.

* * *

The whole escape was rather anticlimactic, all told. Ratchet wasn’t sure what he was expecting. A chase? Some kind of firefight, maybe? But Flyhigh was, at the very least, decently competent at sneaking out of the base. Even while quipping at a semi-constant rate.

The fact that the base was still laughably understaffed almost certainly had something to do with it.

It was beyond fragged up that Ratchet was _disappointed_ by the lack of obstacles. He knew that it was. But he just wanted something -- anything -- to distract him from his own thoughts.

Flyhigh led them to a small starship parked near the edge of the base’ perimeter. He whipped a remote control out of his subspace, pressed a button, and the gangplank descended. 

Once they were on-board, flyhigh sat down in the pilot’s seat. “I’m not as good at this as Crankcase,” he admitted, fiddling with the ship’s controls. “But beggars can’t be choosers.”

“We should be fine as long as you don’t have to aim at anything,” said Swerve, in a tone that suggested it was an inside joke.

“That goes double for you,” said Flyhigh, cheerfully. They lifted off from the ground with a slight jolt. 

They were about to clear the atmosphere when the ship’s comm finally signalled that they were receiving a transmission. Flyhigh opened the audio channel.

Deadlock’s voice crackled to life, as cold and dangerous as the last time he’d spoken with Ratchet. _“If you don’t turn the ship around, I’ll vaporize you.”_

Flyhigh opened his mouth to respond, but Ratchet beat him to it. “Go frag yourself,” he hissed out, before slamming his fist as hard as he could into the comm. It shot out sparks, emitting a brief, high-pitched squeal that rang unpleasantly in Ratchet’s audio receptors, before finally fizzling into silence.

Ratchet wondered if he was supposed to feel any better, now. Because he didn’t.

“So much for negotiating with him,” said Swerve, clearly trying to hide his hysterical state with humor.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Flyhigh. “Deadlock doesn’t really do ‘negotiations’. We were all pretty shocked when he capitulated to Ratchet’s demands instead of just torturing him into compliance.” Flyhigh stroked his chin. “In fact -- Deadlock’s a ‘murder first, threaten later’ kind of bot. If he was _really_ planning to vaporize us, I don’t think he would’ve bothered to tell us ahead of time.”

“Doesn’t matter, anyway,” said Ratchet, grimly. “He’ll kill both of you if we go back.”

“But not you?” asked Swerve. “What makes _you_ so special?”

Ratchet didn’t think ‘special’ entered into it. “Flyhigh didn’t tell you?”

Flyhigh sounded defensive when he said, “That his friend was probably being taken advantage of by the mech who haunts his darkest defrags? Give me a _little_ bit of credit.”

“Wait,” said Swerve. “By ‘taking advantage of’, I’m guessing you don’t mean Ratchet’s medical skills.”

“No,” Ratchet confirmed. “He meant that me and Deadlock were fragging.” Ratchet subscribed to the ‘nobody else’s business’ school of personal revelations, generally speaking. But since Flyhigh had gone and blabbed anyway, he saw no point in leaving things ambiguous. “Which we were. But don’t go thinking that Deadlock gives a damn about me: I just don’t think he’d be satisfied with killing me quickly. Or from a distance.” 

“I mean, it’s been pretty obvious to everyone that he’s obsessed with you,” said Flyhigh. “You think that he’s bluffing?”

“I’d say it’s probable.” Ratchet shrugged. “And I’m willing to play those odds, if you two are.”

“Guess we don’t really have a choice,” said Swerve. He sounded decidedly unnerved. 

“That’s settled, then,” said Flyhigh. “Here goes nothing!”

They stayed the course.

The shots never came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually wrote this story because I asked myself the question: what would've happened if Ratchet and Deadlock had met ahead of schedule...and how would that have impacted Ratchet and Drift's relationship on the Lost Light? So I do intend to write that as a sequel, with perhaps some oneshot 'decompression' fics in-between. Might also tackle what was going on between Swerve and Misfire while all this stuff was going down. As you can no doubt guess, their relationship was a great deal healthier.


End file.
